US Police: DSi Could Lead To Child Abuse

Nothing generates column inches better than a good old scare story, and with the DSi some sectors of society are having a field day.

Take Arkansas police from the good old US of A, for example. Sergeant Adam Holland (who has the rather unenviable task of investigating internet crimes against children) has a bee in his bonnet over the new console’s internet access capability and the built-in cameras it possesses, and claims that these elements mean that children might be at risk.

Here’s a choice quite from Holland himself:

Now not only can the children be contacted, but they can be asked to provide pictures [and] video.

It’s not all negative, though. Holland is quick to point out that the DSi does showcase some parental features:

If the only website you want your kids to go to is YouTube, you go into the parental lockout feature, put in YouTube's URL, and that's the only website your kids will be able to go to.

It’s easy to laugh this story off as mere scandal, but Holland’s report does hold some weight. We’ve already seen scare stories of disturbed people grooming others via Microsoft’s Xbox Live, and given the large number of children that use DS consoles, if someone wanted to entrap a youngster fairly easily then all they need do is walk into their local videogame store and pick up a DSi.

Well, they could do that, if the bloody things were in stock anywhere.

Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.

This is just stupid, kids are at no more of a risk than being sat at a computer at home browsing the web, maybe even less.plus you can always count on nintendos good old parental control settings. p.s the 16 digit friend code thing is freaking retarded! ps3 for the win!

Remember the story about how the DS Lite could be used for grooming because of PictoChat? It was claimed the paedophile could even be in the next car on a motorway, and chat to them that way. What a wonderful image that was.

People are always going to be worried about protecting their children, particularly with new technology they don't understand. I'd be the same.